race which dislikes the Irish and the Catholic as the English dislike
them ... the race that persecuted yours! But you cannot say that I have
not atoned for them as nearly as one man can?"

Trembling with emotion, she simply raised her hands in a gesture that
said a thousand things too beautiful for words.

"My vengeance on the guilty was to disappear. I took with me all my
property, and I left Messalina with her own small dower to enjoy her
freedom in poverty. She sought for me, hired that detective and others
to hound me to my hiding-place, and so far has failed to make sure of
me. But to have you understand the story clearly, I shall stick to the
order of events. I had known Monsignor a few days before calamity
overtook me, and to him I turned for aid. It was he who found a mother
for me, a place among 'the mere Irish,' a career which has turned out
very well. You know how Anne Dillon lost her son. What no one knows is
this: three months before she was asked to take part in the scheme of
disappearance she sent a thousand photographs of her dead husband and
her lost son to the police of California, and offered a reward for his
discovery living or dead. Monsignor helped her to that. I acknowledged
that advertisement from one of the most obscure and ephemeral of the
mining-camps, and came home as her son."

"And the real Arthur Dillon? He was never found?"

"Oh, yes, he answered it too, indirectly. While I was loitering
riotously about, awaiting the proper moment to make myself known, I
heard that one Arthur Dillon was dying in another mining-camp some
thirty miles to the north of us. He claimed to be the real thing, but he
was dying of consumption, and was too feeble, and of too little
consequence, to be taken notice of. I looked after him till he died, and
made sure of his identity. He was Anne Dillon's son and he lies in the
family lot in Calvary beside his father. No one knows this but his
mother, Monsignor, and ourselves. Colette stumbled on the fact in her
search of California, but the fates have been against that clever
woman."

He laughed heartily at the complete overthrow of the escaped nun. Honora
looked at him in astonishment. Arthur Dillon laughed, quite forgetful of
the tragedy of Horace Endicott.

"Since my return you know what I have been, Honora. I can appeal to you
as did Augustus to his friends on his dying-bed: have I not played well
the part?"

"I am lost in wonder," she said.

"Then give